Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sep 3, 2009 / 06:55 pm (CNA).- In response to a ruling by Argentina’s Supreme Court legalizing the possession of drugs for personal use, Archbishop Jose Luis Mollaghan of Rosario and the Archdiocesan Commission for Social Ministry have called for a comprehensive policy to fight drug addiction and help addicts.

In his statement, the archbishop questioned how it would be possible to counsel young people away from drug use without a comprehensive anti-drug policy, especialy when they are told that the possession and use of drugs is legal.

While turning drug addicts into criminals would be counterproductive and of no benefit to fighting their disease, “We should not be adding another affliction to the afflicted,” he said. “Rather, they should be offered every means to be liberated from this evil, to overcome this disease and achieve recovery,” he added.

To legalize the possession of drugs for personal use in these conditions could be interpreted as abandoning drug addicts and neglecting their right to health, the archbishop noted.

The supposed freedom invoked in the high court’s ruling unfortunately will drive many addicts to believe that anything is legal, even the most harmful of drugs, “which ironically they don’t choose to consume freely, because often they do so out of desperation and pressure from the situations which they are experiencing,” Archbishop Mollaghan stated.

The Argentinian archbishop said that the State should respond with a “comprehensive and subsidiary policy.” “All of society should become involved in creating a real social network that provides concrete answers to this disease of our times and that keeps young people from falling into the slavery of drugs.”